


Ambrosias

by philosophicalphan



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: M/M, Phan - Freeform, library!au, university!au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-22
Updated: 2015-03-23
Packaged: 2018-03-19 03:29:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3594690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/philosophicalphan/pseuds/philosophicalphan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>"My secrets belong to the night, Dan Howell."</em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>In which Phil is beautiful despite his dead eyes and fake smile, and Dan suddenly takes an extreme liking to the library down the street.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. une

“Chris, can you turn that bloody music down?!”

  
“ARE YOU HATING ON BRENDON URIE, DANIEL? ARE YOU NOT DREAMING OF A WHITE CHRISTMAS?”

Dan huffed in frustration, his ears ringing from the overwhelming headache pounding in his temples. “It’s not even December yet! Can the Christmas song covers wait until I’m at least done with this essay? That’s due at midnight tonight? That you haven’t finished yet either?”

“Oh loosen up, you studious wombat! Close your laptop, have some hot chocolate, sing along to the wonders that are Panic!’s voices,” Chris shouted, and Dan could have sworn that the music blasting through Chris’ speaker system was turned up even louder.

“Chris, please,” Dan begged from across the dorm room, turning around to look at Chris, who was sprawled across the couch they had split the cost of back in September, a mug in one hand and his iPhone in the other.

Chris looked up from his phone, cocking an eyebrow at Dan’s pleading glare. “Have you no spirit, Dan Howell?”

Dan couldn’t take it anymore. He ripped his charger from the wall, attempting to wind the cord around itself a few times before giving up and shoving it into the bottom of his laptop case, his MacBook Pro following close behind. He slung the bag over his shoulder, grabbing his coat from the floor near his feet and draping it over his arm, patting the pockets to check for his phone and wallet.

“Aww, Danny boy! Don’t leave me!” Chris whined, his bottom lip sticking out in an over-exaggerated pout.

“Goodbye, Christopher,” and with that, Dan was gone, the door of their shared room swinging shut behind him.

Of course, Dan wasn’t really mad at Chris. It was hard to get angry at someone like him … someone who never really means any harm, and takes everything just short of serious. But that didn’t mean that Chris didn’t get on his nerves sometimes, especially on nights like this one, in which Dan had a ten thousand word literary response due at midnight, and he only had one and a half pages written. Chris would probably just write a bunch of junk last minute, maybe a few thousand words, and call it good enough.

Dan couldn’t do that. He, for some reason, could never let things go; always had to have everything done in exactly the right way, however that way may be. And that is the precise reason as to why Dan was currently walking down the cold streets just outside of his university in Manchester, wearing a coat that really didn’t offer as much warmth as it seemed it would, and a laptop bag bouncing against his shoulder blade.

Just as Dan approached his destination, Glitter’s Coffee, he realized that his idea to grab a cup of coffee and hang out at one of the small tables in the cafe until closing time wouldn’t work out as planned.

The small corner shop was packed with people, many of them Dan recognizing from seeing around the campus.

What the hell? Dan thought, thoroughly confused. Didn’t the university students have better things to do on a friday night then hang around the coffee shop?

Frustrated once again, Dan decided that he would go in and get his coffee, and then continue down the street until he found a different, more peaceful cafe or something of the sort to hang out in for the night.

“Hello, what can I get for you today dear?” The young girl working at the register had curly blonde hair, was wearing a polka-dotted button-up blouse, and had a nametag she had obviously hand-made, with “Louise” in big curly block letters across it.

“Uhm, just a medium coffee with room for cream, please?” Dan said, feeling uncomfortable in the loud, overcrowded shop.

“Okay, will that be all?” Dan nodded. “That will be four pounds, and what was your name?”

“Dan,” he mumbled, reaching for his wallet.

When Dan was finally able to leave the claustrophobic shop with a warm cup of coffee (with one sugar and a splash of cream, of course) he took a deep breath, almost glad to be out in the freezing cold autumn air again. Taking a sip of the scorching hot liquid, Dan pondered what he knew about this neighborhood. For having lived there for three months, Dan knew surprisingly little about what surrounded his University.

Dan pulled out his phone to check the time, and saw that it was already almost five o’clock. Deciding to refrain from wasting any more time, he hastily shoved his phone back into his pocket and began the trudge down the freezing streets of Manchester.

After walking for at least three blocks (which isn’t very far but come on, he needed to be writing an essay) Dan gave up and decided to call Chris.

“How dare you ring me Daniel Howell?!” He heard through the phone, wincing at the loud voice booming out of the tiny speaker. “How dare you?”

“Christopher, my dear, you lovely human being, you beautiful soul, the apple of my eye, my-”

“What do you need,” Chris asked, blankly.

Dan laughed, “Where can I stuuddyyyy? I need hellpp,” he whined, drawing out his words.

“Oh, I’m sorry, does Dan need help finding somewhere to go work? Does he hate his roommate and he, for whatever reason can’t stay at Glitter’s and thus needs help finding somewhere to go? Well why would that be?” Chris asked, rhetorically.

“Well-”

“It surely couldn’t be because Dan never leaves his dorm room, could it? It most definitely isn’t because Dan has spent every friday night previous to this one wrapped up in blankets on his bed, with his laptop open in front of him, could it?”

“Shut up, Chris!” Dan tried to say sternly, but couldn’t help the chuckles coming from his mouth.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding. I’ll help you, young grasshopper. There’s a library.”

“I hate libraries.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, wasn’t it you who decided to ring me, begging for help? A library, called Blue Books or something of the sort. It’s right across from that breakfast place we went to last week, remember?”

“On Fourth?” Dan asked, trying to picture the restaurant.

“Yes, yes. I went in to borrow the phone when mine died just a few days ago. Pretty peaceful, and the lad who worked there was nice enough.”

“But libraries are so quiet,” Dan replied, partly because it was true but mostly because he wanted an excuse to complain.

“Hey, how’s that ten thousand word essay you’re supposed to be writing coming along there, mate?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys! this is my first fic ever so bare with me:-) let me know if you want chapter two!


	2. deux

The sign was old.  
  
Everything was, to be quite honest, but the sign showed it the most. It was made out of wood, hanging on the shop so unsteadily that Dan felt a vague fear in the pit of his stomach that it may fall down on him when he walked into the shop. It was long, stretching nearly all the way across the length of the library (not that the building large … it was actually very petite compared to the various shops surrounding it) and had the words “Blue Lotus Books” painted across it in big black letters, a delicate painting of what Dan assumed was a Blue Lotus flower on either side.  
  
Not that Dan knew much about flowers.  
  
As old and rundown as it seemed, the library was actually quite adorable, with a little porch leading the way to the door, almost as if it was originally meant to be a small house. Most of the small building was painted white, with some blue incorporated as well. The walls would stand to be repainted, and the rocking chair sitting on the roofed porch looked as if it hadn’t been touched in ages, but something about the whole thing was very endearing.  
  
Dan loved it.  
  
In fact, Dan loved it so much that there’s a good chance he would have been out there all night, staring at the cute house-like library, if it weren’t for the gust of wind and sudden cold that washed over him, awakening him from his trance. So, shaking out his dark brown, slightly wavy fringe, he walked up the few stairs to the porch, stepping into the cute little library.  
  
Warmth. It was the first thing Dan noticed, the warm temperature washing over him and heating up his joints, bringing feeling back to the tips of his fingers.  
  
Then it was the smell. Dan wasn’t an expert, but it was definitely flowers. _Real_ flowers, not some chemically produced air freshener made in a lab somewhere that smelled more like cleansing products than plants. Dan had never been one to notice scents, or to judge an establishment based on what it _smelled_ like, but he suddenly felt the urge to box up every last bit of air in the room and empty it into his dorm, never wanting to be away from the enticing aroma.  
  
And finally it was the sight. The entirety of the library was so delicate-looking, in a way that made it seem like nothing in it had been touched for years. The interior was bigger than Dan expected, filled with soft colors and vintage books and gorgeous antiques. Shelves after shelves filled with endless novels, the occasional trinket or knickknack sitting peacefully between book covers.  
  
Dan walked further into the shop, his eyes landing on the check-out desk, a small area that had a few tables and chairs scattered through it, and more shelves of books. He could see that the store opened up in the back, the shelves becoming less dense to make room for something else, but whatever it was, Dan couldn’t see. `  
  
It was then that Dan noticed the library (or should he refer to it as a relic) was empty. He was alone.  
  
Confused, he turned to look at the door, but he faced the sign that said it was open until 12 o’clock midnight everyday except sunday (which was weird enough in itself … who would want to work at a library until midnight everyday?). Sure, the place was small and somewhat hidden amongst the other shops … but shouldn’t there have been even a few people wandering around? Or, if not that, a librarian or two?  
  
Taking another sip of his coffee, Dan decided to trust the sign rather than face the cold of the outdoors again, and plopped himself down at one of the desks. The light pink table had two white wooden tables tucked under it, with pink cushions on the seats. The chair was far more comfortable than Dan expected it to be, and an image flashed across his mind of returning to this small library, and sitting in the cute white chair again.  
  
He pulled out his laptop, shaking off the uncomfortable feeling of being alone in an unfamiliar place, and opened to the document he had been typing on previously. He had just finished his introduction, in which he introduced the book and gave a background on the author, the time period, and the book itself. He was now onto the part of the essay where he planned on analyzing the characters, but to do so he would need quotes from the text.  
  
_Crap_ , Dan thought, realizing he had forgot his copy of _Wuthering_ Heights back in the dorm. Scrolling over to the “Firefox” icon on his laptop, he went to google the GoodReads page for the book, but a message popped up stating that he was not connected to the internet. Manually checking, he saw that there was no WiFi in Blue Lotus.  
  
_Hm_ , he thought, double checking for nearby WiFi signals, _maybe that’s why no one’s here._ Sighing, Dan switched back to his essay document, staring at the white screen for a few seconds. There was no way he was walking all the back to his University just to grab his book, so he knew his only option was to keep writing, and to add the quotes in later when he got back home.  
  
Dan wrote a paragraph or two before pausing to take a sip of his coffee. His eyes left his laptop screen, his gaze running across the hundreds of books filling the warm library.  
  
Hundreds of books.  
  
Books.  
  
_Literally, could I be any more stupid?_  
  
Taking the last sip of his warm drink, Dan pushed himself out of the chair, walking toward the shelves. He was such an idiot! Why didn’t he just borrow a copy of the damn book from the very room he was sitting in?  
  
And so, Dan began the search for the lovely book he still needed to write nine thousand words on. Dan had been to libraries only a few times in his life, all of which were big, city libraries where everything was laid out very clearly and it was very obvious where to go to look for a specific title.  
  
Who would’ve thought that finding such a marvelous work of literature in such a small library would be so hard?  
  
After Dan had been searching the dozens of shelves for over ten minutes, he finally reached the shelf that he reckoned was the “Classic Literature” section. Noticing that the various novels were in alphabetical order based on the authors’ last names, Dan looked on the top shelf for the ‘B’s.  
  
William Blake … George Borrow … B.M. Bowser … Ernest Bramah …  
  
The next spot was empty. Literally. It was as if whatever book had been sitting between Bramah’s _The Moon of Much Gladness_ and Brooke’s _Lithuania_ had been grabbed from the shelf, the spot still sitting there, waiting for the book to be put back. And Dan would have bet the clothes on his back it was _Wuthering Heights._  
  
Of course! Of freaking course! The one book Dan needed in that god damned library was the one book (the _one freaking book_ ) missing from that shelf. Quickly scanning his eyes over the remainder of the titles on the bookcase, Dan huffed in annoyance and turned around to go stomp his way back to the pink table he had designated as his new home.  
  
That’s when he saw it.  
  
Something was peaking out from behind one of the shelves about ten feet from him. Something large, made of sleek, dark wood. It was the thing that was sitting in the open, shelf-free area he had seen earlier. And just from that, that tiny glimpse of the wooden exterior of the object, Dan knew what it was.  
  
His mind floating somewhere just outside of his body, Dan found his feet somehow making their way towards the piano, his body soon finding itself just inches away from the most beautiful instrument he had ever seen. Walking slowly around it until he reached the face of the instrument, Dan couldn’t tear his gaze from the beautiful dark wood that made up the exterior of the enormous grand piano. When he reached the face, the part of the piano with the keys and the bench tucked under it, his jaw dropped and his eyes widened, a look of absolute enchantment on his face.  
  
That symbol, Dan _knew_ that symbol. Snapping his mind back to reality, Dan forced his feet to take him another step forward, his eyes zeroing in on the golden letters sitting on the otherwise purely detailed dark wood. Steinway  & Sons.  
  
His eyes raked up and down the body of the instrument, his mind swimming through all the information it held about Steinway pianos.  
This one, the gorgeous grand piano in the back of the small, overlooked library in the middle of a random street in Manchester, was a one-of-a-kind, model _D-274 Alma Tadema_ grand piano.  
  
In other words, it was worth over a million dollars.  
  
Dan found himself unable to rip his eyes from the alluring piano, not that he wanted to. He stepped forward again, wanting nothing more than to lift the fallboard and see the beautiful shiny keys of the Steinway piano. There was no sheet music on the stand, but Dan knew all of his favorite pieces by heart. He lifted an arm, slowly reaching toward the instrument, and-  
  
“Don’t touch that.”  
  
Dan had never whirled around so fast, and he was sure that either his ankles or his neck had broken, he was just unclear on which one it was that had made the awful cracking sound. It wasn’t that he was afraid of being caught admiring the piano, it was that the voice had startled him. He thought he was alone, _knew_ he was alone, actually, so hearing another voice cut through the built up silence was enough to make him jump.  
  
Once he had calmed his racing heart, Dan looked in front of him to see a boy around his height, with pale skin and black hair styled similarly to his own. He was looking at the floor, shaking out his hair, and then...  
  
_Holy shit._  
  
The thing that Dan noticed first wasn’t his perfect black fringe, laying across his forehead but going in the direction of the right half of his face.  
  
It wasn’t the pink hibiscus flower tucked behind one of his ears, bringing out the red tint of his cheekbones.  
  
And it wasn’t the way he stood, confident but closed-off, as if he wanted to be standing at center stage, and sitting in the back of a dark audience all at once.  
  
It was his eyes. His gorgeous, compelling blue eyes that were fixated on Dan’s face, their gaze boring into his own. Those beguiling eyes that were too deep to match the sky, but too light to be the ocean, leaving him with the perfect combination of both together, making them the most beautiful shade of bright, icey blue Dan had ever seen.  
  
But somewhere beneath the gorgeous color, there was a layer of something distant. Something closed off, almost hidden by the lovely shade of blue. What Dan had initially interpreted as a pair of bright blue eyes, he then realized maybe weren’t so bright after all. They were still dazzling, of course, but were they sparkling? Dan didn’t think so. It was as if there was a light behind both eyes, a candle that was meant to be lit (and maybe was at some point) but was now blown out, leaving the marvelous blue orbs almost … dim.  
  
They were too intriguing to turn away from, but almost too intimidating to look at. As compelling as the color was, the eyes somehow seemed delicate, like all it had taken was one gust of wind to make the small fire behind them flicker out.  
  
And although Dan knew nothing about the mysterious boy in front of him with the beautiful dead eyes, he had suddenly made it his mission to reignite them.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's chapter two! comments make me smile:-)

**Author's Note:**

> hey guys! this is my first ever fic so bare with me. let me know if you want chapter two:-)


End file.
